Microsoft Claims "Cloud" Will Quadruple Power of Xbox One

[FFP2]

peple like you shuld get a better internet. No, really, i pity people who have t struggle with internet like that. been there, 10 years ago, i know how hard it is and i hope you upgrade as fast as possible.

The fastest non business class package over here is around 600kB/s. And we'd have to pay around 150$ per month for that.

This "cloud" bullshit isn't excusable until everyone around the world has stable and fast internet. Shit, even MS's target market (USA) has crappy internet.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

This is how I think they're doing this.
They're using idle XB1s to off load some of the calculations of users actively playing games.
It'll be extra efficient if that idle XB1 has the same game installed as the one being played.
So in busy hours your XB1 plays like shit but in the wee hours of the morning when everyone else is asleep it'll play like a monster PC because it can off load so much of its workload on idle XB1s.
They might even install bare bones "games" on your harddrive without you knowing.
So while some people are watching Game of Thrones you'll be using their cpu, gpu and ram to play Call of Duty.

So even when I'm not using my (theoretical) Xbone, it will be leaching my bandwidth and eating up my data-cap?

Microsoft are stupid morons but they are not that stupid.

 

[seditary]

Why would I want 3 extra Xbones in the cloud to watch TV?

Games, what are those things? Silly Microsoft, those aren't sports or television or dogs or water coolers.

Nice waste of money.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

So basically his is OnLive type of service. Which means a strong and stable internet connection will be needed to use the device, hence the always online comes back.

Unless you're someone like me who only gets 10 megabits down and 1 up. There's no way their cloud would be able to improve anything on my network

Actually, if we assume that calculation server side graphic generation user side assumption (which woudl require Xbone t be mostly a VGA conencted to internet, which frankly it is seeing as it uses a tablet processor, your internet shoudl be able to handle it fine. it does not take big bnadwitch to send calculatino commands and results, only if you want to stream the actual game. but i the visuals are generated locally then this can work.
Now who is willign to be MS is that smart? yeah, i guess noone.

But if its like a VGA connected to the Internet, how is my Xbone supposed to get sound?
[small]har har, I'm such a smart ass[/small]

Even my speeds were good enough to download the data, an xbox one connected to my house would still need to send data to the severs and Internet speeds are only an average. I can't see this system being very responsive if my up speed is fluctuating between one up and and next to zero. There's also ping and how far away these servers are away from house. But I think we can agree this cloud thing is probably a bad idea. I don't trust publishers like EA to put in cloud improvement as an option to improve our game but rather a mandatory "feature"

 

[pilouuuu]

Yes, it will quadruple power of XB1 DRM... SimCity was in fact limited thanks to the cloud. Small cities and the gaming logging off thanks to the cloud system... So I'm, afraid that XB1 users will have to tolerate a lot of problems thanks to bad internet connections and stupid on-line features in games that should be off-line single player.

Microsoft wants really hard that PC users don't play on their computers, but just use them for Office and Internet, but do you know what Microsoft? Your stupid console will only make PC gaming stronger.

 

[Denamic]

There's definitely a place for cloud computing. That place is not real-time entertainment. The internal processing of modern computer hardware often has a data flow throughput of many gigabytes per second, with latency measured in nanoseconds and not milliseconds. Put simply, there's severe bandwidth issues for real-time cloud computing for the end-user. What point is there to calculate data elsewhere when the time it takes to send, calculate, and receive is far greater than the time it would take to just do it locally? I'm sure you could calculate some complex simulations or scientific formulas with it, but it won't improve any entertainment aspect of games.

 

[zidine100]

sorry we have usage caps, we have "fair" use policy's on unlimited internet, how much freaking bandwidth do you expect us to use, its not viable, dont tell me to get a better internet or to stop whining about it, we don't all live in America.

Then there's the thing of how is this all going to work, are you really going to host enough hardware to make good on the demand for this, Because if your estimated sales figure are to believed, good freaking luck. Isnt this going to be a total nightmare to program for if your not just going to say screw it and just stream the games.

 

[Strazdas]

Let me guess, you live in a highly urbanized area where you've got access to constant high-speed internet? Possible even glass-fiber?

Now in the rest of the world, or even in those highly urbanized areas where you're connecting to servers on another continent, all those ping counts you claim to have existed only in 2008 still happen.

See... not everyone has high-speed internet. I know it's difficult to understand, but just try to imagine. People, through absolutely no fault of their own, have internet connections that are not as fast as yours. They are significantly slower. It's not because they did something wrong, it's because they live in different places.

Now imagine that one of these people, playing a single-player game, with their slower internet connection due to their location, what do you think will happen if that new AI behavior that was supposed to come every two seconds gets delayed?

And you clearly don't know how MMOs work. MMOs aren't calculated purely server-side. They're calculated in tandem. The client does the calculations as well, so it can immediately give you a reaction that you're expecting. You don't have to wait for a server response. Whilst the client is doing that and your game continues as normal the server is also calculating it and sending the results back to you, if it differs from the client then the client's results are overwritten and you get the before mentioned rubberbanding effect. In MMOs this has a use since it prevents cheating and makes sure calculations are always using the latest data available on server whilst at the same time you get an instant response to your key-presses since the calculations also run locally.

Now please tell me, what the freaking point of doing the same calculations twice both on server and locally for a single-player game? Your local information is never out-of-date, in fact it's the server-side information that will be. You don't have to prevent cheating since there's nobody there to cheat.

over 70% of my country has acess to glass fiber, the rest has acess to high speed internet. even those living in small villages.
If you do not have high speed internet and that is not yur own fault (some people buy the cheapest possible plan and then complain that its slow) then the msot propbably reason is your ISP is a greedy extortionist. This is 2013. All first world countries should have high speed internet by now were it not for some greedy monopolists using the people as ransom.
Now, i understand it is not always possible to make a stand against your ISP because in capitalism they will be the right party. However blaming MS for that is stupid.
MMos work in many different ways. soe calculate player side, some in tandem and some server side only. An example of server side calculation would be Tibia. you press a key, it sends info to server, and only when it recives info form server that you have moved left or w/e you can do anything else. thing is, this happens so fast the game is still fluid. some MMOs (WOT for exaple) do some calculations in client and all in server. they also allwo you to chose what you want to see, and most people chose to see nly server calcualtions becuase thats the only ones that matter to begin with. for people with slow internet it is known t cause some delays, true.
The point of cloud gaming is that you do not do the calculation locally. you do them on the server, thus lowering local machine load.

The fastest non business class package over here is around 600kB/s. And we'd have to pay around 150$ per month for that.

This "cloud" bullshit isn't excusable until everyone around the world has stable and fast internet. Shit, even MS's target market (USA) has crappy internet.

Well, change your ISP? or is it a monopolitic greedy one where you live? and why is MS at fault that you allow yourself to be abused by ISP?
USA actually has extremely bad internet coverage compared to the rest of the world.

Microsoft are stupid morons but they are not that stupid.

Never underestimate stupidity of people. it only leads to dissapintment.

But if its like a VGA connected to the Internet, how is my Xbone supposed to get sound?
[small]har har, I'm such a smart ass[/small]

Even my speeds were good enough to download the data, an xbox one connected to my house would still need to send data to the severs and Internet speeds are only an average. I can't see this system being very responsive if my up speed is fluctuating between one up and and next to zero. There's also ping and how far away these servers are away from house. But I think we can agree this cloud thing is probably a bad idea. I don't trust publishers like EA to put in cloud improvement as an option to improve our game but rather a mandatory "feature"

I didnt say it was a VGA with internet connection, i meant that the main purpose for the box would be a VGA that uses internet as an actual processing machine. It can have lcoal soundcard and processor to run and it does, duh. it just does not try to make it powerful enough run everything but only powerful enough to process data from the cloud w/e the cloud would be raining about.
Well all normal ISP provide same down and up speeds. they sue to do it differently here 5 years ago but then it was kinda told that this is discrimination of users and thants to competition the up speeds sky-rocketed.
Of course i agree that cloud gaming is a bad idea, but not because people dont have internet.

sorry we have usage caps, we have "fair" use policy's on unlimited internet, how much freaking bandwidth do you expect us to use, its not viable, dont tell me to get a better internet or to stop whining about it, we don't all live in America.

Usage cap are so 2008. ok, sorry, bad pun. What is "Fair" usage anyway? the way i udnerstand is you have it unlimited but your ISP can cut it if they think you use mroe thna they want? who in thier right mind would sign such a contract? unlimited means ulimited, because thats exactly what your signing for - unlimited. not "limited by the mood of ISP".
Also silly of you to think that americans are the ones with good internet.....

 

[Hagi]

over 70% of my country has acess to glass fiber, the rest has acess to high speed internet. even those living in small villages.
If you do not have high speed internet and that is not yur own fault (some people buy the cheapest possible plan and then complain that its slow) then the msot propbably reason is your ISP is a greedy extortionist. This is 2013. All first world countries should have high speed internet by now were it not for some greedy monopolists using the people as ransom.
Now, i understand it is not always possible to make a stand against your ISP because in capitalism they will be the right party. However blaming MS for that is stupid.

You do realize that your country is an exception right? That your country is known as the country with the fastest internet speeds in the world. It takes some serious statistical incompetency to generalize that to being the average for today.

Microsoft expecting their entire market to have the internet speeds you describe is the equivalent of Nintendo or Sony expecting everyone to speak Japanese and thus only supporting that language, AKA batshit retarded.

 

[Strazdas]

over 70% of my country has acess to glass fiber, the rest has acess to high speed internet. even those living in small villages.
If you do not have high speed internet and that is not yur own fault (some people buy the cheapest possible plan and then complain that its slow) then the msot propbably reason is your ISP is a greedy extortionist. This is 2013. All first world countries should have high speed internet by now were it not for some greedy monopolists using the people as ransom.
Now, i understand it is not always possible to make a stand against your ISP because in capitalism they will be the right party. However blaming MS for that is stupid.

You do realize that your country is an exception right? That your country is known as the country with the fastest internet speeds in the world. It takes some serious statistical incompetency to generalize that to being the average for today.

Microsoft expecting their entire market to have the internet speeds you describe is the equivalent of Nintendo or Sony expecting everyone to speak Japanese and thus only supporting that language, AKA batshit retarded.

I neer said it was the average of today. Merely pointing out that it does not take a heavily urbanized area to have glass fiber of heaven knows bradband. i heard some of the escapists say they still use dialup, a type of internet that died 15 years ago. and since they use 15 year obsolete technology then surely MS must be crazy to not account for that.
No, MS excects theri entire audience to have at least some form of internet. which is a pretty fair expectation. majority of the world has internet. there are 200 times more people with constant usage of internet than consoles sold worldwide.
Yes, there will be a few users that d not have internet and use xbox. those are statistical extremities and are ignored. There are peple wo believe the earth is flat, but that does not mean we must teach our kids that this is a possibility.

 

[zidine100]

sorry we have usage caps, we have "fair" use policy's on unlimited internet, how much freaking bandwidth do you expect us to use, its not viable, dont tell me to get a better internet or to stop whining about it, we don't all live in America.

Usage cap are so 2008. ok, sorry, bad pun. What is "Fair" usage anyway? the way i udnerstand is you have it unlimited but your ISP can cut it if they think you use mroe thna they want? who in thier right mind would sign such a contract? unlimited means ulimited, because thats exactly what your signing for - unlimited. not "limited by the mood of ISP".
Also silly of you to think that americans are the ones with good internet.....

Fair use policys are common place here, unlimited is only unlimited to there limits, there's some isps that will try to cut you off if you use more than 10gb a month, on a freaking unlimited package. Got to love those terms and conditions eh? On a side note good freaking luck finding a isp here who doesn't have a fair use policy, to be quite honest ive never seen one.

and then theres the bandwidth throttling that will happen if this system catches on here, depending how this cloud service is implemented of course.

 

[Hagi]

I neer said it was the average of today. Merely pointing out that it does not take a heavily urbanized area to have glass fiber of heaven knows bradband. i heard some of the escapists say they still use dialup, a type of internet that died 15 years ago. and since they use 15 year obsolete technology then surely MS must be crazy to not account for that.
No, MS excects theri entire audience to have at least some form of internet. which is a pretty fair expectation. majority of the world has internet. there are 200 times more people with constant usage of internet than consoles sold worldwide.
Yes, there will be a few users that d not have internet and use xbox. those are statistical extremities and are ignored. There are peple wo believe the earth is flat, but that does not mean we must teach our kids that this is a possibility.

You do know what 'majority' means right?

65% of the world does not have an internet connection at all, period. Even in developed countries there are vast amounts of people who do not have broadband internet, having one broadband subscription for every three people is extremely high and taking into account that the average household is two people in size, in developed countries, you're left with a third of the population not having broadband in the countries with the best possible internet coverage. Even people who do have broadband internet often have limitations on bandwidth and can't have a device that's constantly sending off packets to a cloud somewhere eating up that bandwidth constantly.

But by all means, continue believing that broadband internet is like rain and sunshine, freely available to everyone who might need it...

I think the recent jump in WiiU sales and Sony stocks says more than enough about Microsoft's intelligence on this matter.

 

[panosbouk]

This is functionally always online. You won't be able to play some games without that additional processing. Haha. It's a great idea to expand the console lifespan but it spits in the face of the consumer. Who knows though, cloud processing may become the way of the future. I'm just not going to support it.

As you said it spits in the face of the consumer, and as a result developers and publishers will be the ones to be affected the most.

If publishers think that this is the way to go and force the developer make it so but the customers doesn't support such a game, I can only see it going downhill.

We see games now sell 3.7mil copies and still counts as loss, what will happen if they sell even half that amount? I'm scared of what will happen to this industry.

I am not saying cloud it will not work as a service to expand the lifespan of a console, many thing we thought that will fail became part of our everyday lifestyle, but to see good developers have their studios closed cause the didn't met the "expectations", or even publishers having bigger problems that already have, it will be sad to watch it happen.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

But if its like a VGA connected to the Internet, how is my Xbone supposed to get sound?
[small]har har, I'm such a smart ass[/small]

Even my speeds were good enough to download the data, an xbox one connected to my house would still need to send data to the severs and Internet speeds are only an average. I can't see this system being very responsive if my up speed is fluctuating between one up and and next to zero. There's also ping and how far away these servers are away from house. But I think we can agree this cloud thing is probably a bad idea. I don't trust publishers like EA to put in cloud improvement as an option to improve our game but rather a mandatory "feature"

I didnt say it was a VGA with internet connection, i meant that the main purpose for the box would be a VGA that uses internet as an actual processing machine. It can have lcoal soundcard and processor to run and it does, duh. it just does not try to make it powerful enough run everything but only powerful enough to process data from the cloud w/e the cloud would be raining about.
Well all normal ISP provide same down and up speeds. they sue to do it differently here 5 years ago but then it was kinda told that this is discrimination of users and thants to competition the up speeds sky-rocketed.
Of course i agree that cloud gaming is a bad idea, but not because people dont have internet.

I know. You were comparing the xbox to a VGA because a VGA transfers video data from the computer tower that does that processing to the display in the same way the xbox will transfer video (and audio) from a server that's doing the processing. I was just trying to get cute with you.

But I don't understand why you're trying to defend this practice if you don't think cloud gaming is a good idea. Here's the main thing: we should not have to conform to what Microsoft wants, Microsoft should conform to what we want. And you're still missing a few details. I get my Internet from Cincinnati Bell and they recently started a program to upgrade people's Internet speeds through fi-optics. So why are my speeds so slow? Its cause my community uses a lot Internet. 2 of my coworkers like their new fi-optics because they get speeds between 20-30 megabits during the day and sometimes between 50-100 at night. I've never gotten those speeds. Also, have you heard of the 6 strikes law? Now ISP's are tracking people's Internet activity for piracy and are punishing their users through a 6 strikes system. Fuck. That. And its the 6 most popular ISP's in the country (USA). Here's details: http://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-anti-piracy-scheme-starts-monday-130223/

 

[VortexCortex]

"Xbox On"
...
...

"Xbo--"

Take a number honey, I can't suck off two users at once. I'm being the Cloud.

"Xbox Off!"
...

"Man, I've got to get me a P--"

Shluuurpa Sslurpa Shluurpa

"XBOX! Those are MY ELECTRONS you're using on that other player!"

Read the EULA. You can kiss my ass or kiss your XBL goodbye.

"I. hate. you. so. much. ... STOP STARING AT ME"

I can't!

 

[Strazdas]

Fair use policys are common place here, unlimited is only unlimited to there limits, there's some isps that will try to cut you off if you use more than 10gb a month, on a freaking unlimited package. Got to love those terms and conditions eh? On a side note good freaking luck finding a isp here who doesn't have a fair use policy, to be quite honest ive never seen one.

and then theres the bandwidth throttling that will happen if this system catches on here, depending how this cloud service is implemented of course.

They tried that once here, government institutions waggled thier finger but it didnt went further as they didnt dare trying it again. because thats basically a breach of contract.

You do know what 'majority' means right?

65% of the world does not have an internet connection at all, period. Even in developed countries there are vast amounts of people who do not have broadband internet, having one broadband subscription for every three people is extremely high and taking into account that the average household is two people in size, in developed countries, you're left with a third of the population not having broadband in the countries with the best possible internet coverage. Even people who do have broadband internet often have limitations on bandwidth and can't have a device that's constantly sending off packets to a cloud somewhere eating up that bandwidth constantly.

But by all means, continue believing that broadband internet is like rain and sunshine, freely available to everyone who might need it...

I think the recent jump in WiiU sales and Sony stocks says more than enough about Microsoft's intelligence on this matter.

50%+1
however while its nice to claim that 65% of the population does not have internet connection, one must take away the number of people who simply are unable to get one. half the people in US are in low income [http://news.yahoo.com/census-shows-1-2-people-poor-low-income-054325860.html], and thats US, think about africa, or india, or china. While i could not find exact data, and the best i could is that over 25% of world populating lives of less than 1.25 dollar a day, it is quite safe to assume that majority of those 7 billion people would not be able to afford internet connection or Xbone to begin with. thus we can safely rule them out of any need to account for their market share. what this leaves is a wast majority of internet users in remaining population.
I do not know where you get your information, but it is really strange to hear things like majority of people in developed countries not having acess to broadband internet. Makes me wonder if your data is 10 year old or something.
you also assume 2 people per household. When in reality the weighted average of developed countries [http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_ave_siz_of_hou-people-average-size-of-households] is 2.5. Some newer census in US [http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/all-states/average-household-size#map] show it to be 2.59. Now, knowing the fact that developed countries usualyl tend to ahve smallest household size while less developed ones usually have more children and families are more likely to live together (tradition, lack of finances, other factors), it is quite silly to assume 2 for worldwide household size.
So by your own logic if we have 1 subscriber for 3 people, and the household census is, say, 2.6, then we only have 12% of people without acess to broadband internet in developed countries. And out of those 12%, how may are either not able to buy a new console or not interested in gaming console is still left unknown. If we take those out, we may find out that the real "lost" audience is actually very very small.
Bandwitch limitations is a real threat, however the tendency for them to either rise to unreasonable levels (we have a ISP here that does limits, but the limit is 1000GB, so unless you host a server your not going to reach it, and if you host a server you shouldnt be using home internet package anyway). Xbone is clearly hoping for "futire will be easier" deal and with time those limits will get removed. Internet coverage is increasing rapidly, and what with the Google Glass initiative to cover US with glass fiber (though admittedly it kinda went off the radar).
I agree that this feature as it is now is a terrible terrible idea and fully support peopel gonig towards Sony because of it. Its just that its not the internet requirement thats bad about it.

But I don't understand why you're trying to defend this practice if you don't think cloud gaming is a good idea. Here's the main thing: we should not have to conform to what Microsoft wants, Microsoft should conform to what we want. And you're still missing a few details. I get my Internet from Cincinnati Bell and they recently started a program to upgrade people's Internet speeds through fi-optics. So why are my speeds so slow? Its cause my community uses a lot Internet. 2 of my coworkers like their new fi-optics because they get speeds between 20-30 megabits during the day and sometimes between 50-100 at night. I've never gotten those speeds. Also, have you heard of the 6 strikes law? Now ISP's are tracking people's Internet activity for piracy and are punishing their users through a 6 strikes system. Fuck. That. And its the 6 most popular ISP's in the country (USA). Here's details: http://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-anti-piracy-scheme-starts-monday-130223/

Im not trying to defend this particular practice. im trying to defend clouding. Clouding can be a GREAT way of gaming if done well and it should be an optional thing. I for one woudl gladly use Cloud PC gaming if done properly right now, but does not mean i want to be forced into it.
Well, of course microsoft should cater to what average gamer (not us, we are not average gamers) want. whether they suceeded in that or not can only be seen after launch. If MS catered to us, Xbox would be a nicnhe product. Its not trying to be one.
How big is your community? did they bring one cable for a whole town or something? 1 tiny cable piece of fiber optics can transfer up to 100mbps (theoretically 200mbps, but noone puts thier servers THAT close) of data. a usual cable that they extend towards your street or so usually has in the range from 30 to 100 of these things. So unless you got a single cable set for 1000 folks and they are all downloading stuff like crazy all day long you shouldn't have problems. could it be that your ISP just throttling you? or maybe they decided to cut corners and put cheaper double-copper wires instead of glass fiber (very very stupid, but never underestimate stupidity of people).
They tried to introduce same law here except 3 strikes. All major ISPs here came out and claimed they simply dont have the physical capability to track the thousands GB/s data that goes though their servers and if such law passed they would be all forced to shut down because buying such hardware would cause them to double the prices and in turn make them bankrupt. the law failed. your ISPs can afford that i guess, because from what i saw of them they tend to provide pis poor service, use outdated calbes (why pay money and get new cables in, lets get rich instead) and charge you 3 times the cost of fiber optics internet elsewhere. so yeah id say they got some letf-over money for that.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

But I don't understand why you're trying to defend this practice if you don't think cloud gaming is a good idea. Here's the main thing: we should not have to conform to what Microsoft wants, Microsoft should conform to what we want. And you're still missing a few details. I get my Internet from Cincinnati Bell and they recently started a program to upgrade people's Internet speeds through fi-optics. So why are my speeds so slow? Its cause my community uses a lot Internet. 2 of my coworkers like their new fi-optics because they get speeds between 20-30 megabits during the day and sometimes between 50-100 at night. I've never gotten those speeds. Also, have you heard of the 6 strikes law? Now ISP's are tracking people's Internet activity for piracy and are punishing their users through a 6 strikes system. Fuck. That. And its the 6 most popular ISP's in the country (USA). Here's details: http://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-anti-piracy-scheme-starts-monday-130223/

Im not trying to defend this particular practice. im trying to defend clouding. Clouding can be a GREAT way of gaming if done well and it should be an optional thing. I for one woudl gladly use Cloud PC gaming if done properly right now, but does not mean i want to be forced into it.
Well, of course microsoft should cater to what average gamer (not us, we are not average gamers) want. whether they suceeded in that or not can only be seen after launch. If MS catered to us, Xbox would be a nicnhe product. Its not trying to be one.
How big is your community? did they bring one cable for a whole town or something? 1 tiny cable piece of fiber optics can transfer up to 100mbps (theoretically 200mbps, but noone puts thier servers THAT close) of data. a usual cable that they extend towards your street or so usually has in the range from 30 to 100 of these things. So unless you got a single cable set for 1000 folks and they are all downloading stuff like crazy all day long you shouldn't have problems. could it be that your ISP just throttling you? or maybe they decided to cut corners and put cheaper double-copper wires instead of glass fiber (very very stupid, but never underestimate stupidity of people).

Cincinnati Bell basically has a monopoly in the tristate here (Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio). They're shitty company. I live in suburbs/city so I have options but people living east Bumblefuck aren't so lucky. I don't know why my speeds are complete ass, but there's nothing I can do about it

They tried to introduce same law here except 3 strikes. All major ISPs here came out and claimed they simply dont have the physical capability to track the thousands GB/s data that goes though their servers and if such law passed they would be all forced to shut down because buying such hardware would cause them to double the prices and in turn make them bankrupt. the law failed. your ISPs can afford that i guess, because from what i saw of them they tend to provide pis poor service, use outdated calbes (why pay money and get new cables in, lets get rich instead) and charge you 3 times the cost of fiber optics internet elsewhere. so yeah id say they got some letf-over money for that.

Its a little different. The Hollywood companies will basically be tracking the IP addresses that connect to torrents. They made a deal with the ISPs in which they then report the IP addresses they found and the ISP does the punishing. Its bullshit because they're mostly doing it because they have a stake in this as entertainment provides. For example. Time Warner Cable wants to stop people from pirating on their Road Runner service because Time Warner also provides cable tv. "Can't pirate Game of Thrones? I guess you'll have to pay for cable" is their bullshit logic

Also...

50%+1

that is not a majority. There's a reason elections are done with a 2/3 majority and not a 51% majority

I'm not really sure what you're trying to get at here. I was under the impression you were smart because you "corrected" me in another thread (I'm still calling bullshit on bluetooth being on its way out the door). Its not hard to understand that some people simply can't get good Internet without being fucked over in some way. If it wasn't a problem we all wouldn't be complaining. But for the record, I agree the cloud would be an interesting option as opposed to an excuse for always online drm

 

[Hagi]

I do not know where you get your information, but it is really strange to hear things like majority of people in developed countries not having acess to broadband internet. Makes me wonder if your data is 10 year old or something.

Your Source (check your link): Economic Commission for Europe Statistical Division, Trends in Europe and North America 2001 (UN Economic Commission for Europe, NY, 2001), p. 74

My Source: EU-SILC Survey 2011.

Which would be 2.3 to be exact (US in recent statistics would be at 2.55). Then again, if we're going to be exact then the Broadband Penetration is actually below 33% as well ( UK: 31.56%, Germany: 31.70%, USA: 27.62%, Japan: 26.91%. Those would be 2012 statistics from the International Telecommunication Union ).

In the end it works just the same to around a third of the population of the richest and most developed countries not having access to broadband internet.